Today more and more businesses are moving their business to the cloud. As internet technology gets more sophisticated, more safe and more user friendly, it’s making more and more sense for businesses to use cloud services rather than in-house services.
==> What Is the Cloud?
The cloud refers to any service that resides on the internet instead of your own computer.
For example, Salesforce is a cloud-based customer management system. While a lot of sales teams still use in-house systems to manage their sales and customers, more and more people are moving to online CMS systems.
Here are some of the most important things to think about when you’re considering moving to the cloud.
==> Penetration Security
What are the chances that your data can be compromised by hackers? Though there’s no way to guarantee it can’t happen, you can reduce the chances by working with a reputable company.
Even banks and Fortune 500 companies like Sony have been penetrated in 2011. You can take precautions, but penetration security is a real concern of the cloud.
==> Data Security
On the other hand, you also need to consider the security of your data. What happens if an earthquake hits the servers of the cloud service? What happens if a drive gets corrupted?
Is your data backed up in multiple locations? Is there a possibility of the cloud service losing your information?
==> Costs
One of the biggest reasons to switch to the cloud is to reduce costs.
For example, compare the costs between running an in-house email server and using a cloud-based email service.
A cloud-based service like AWeber or GetResponse might cost you $40 a month. On the other hand, running a mail server can cost you thousands of dollars a month, including the cost of the system admin. Not to mention the set-up costs.
Cloud services are typically much, much cheaper than their in-house counterparts.
==> Ease of Use
Often times cloud services are just plain easier to use than in-house services.
Take Salesforce for example. If you had an in-house team of engineers design a CMS system, chances are there are going to be all kinds of usability issues. Working out the kinks in a new system takes months.
On the other hand, cloud systems have usually already worked out all the kinks. All their features are easy to use, as they’ve already taken months of customer feedback into account.
==> Legalities
If you’re dealing with sensitive customer data, make sure you consult an attorney before putting the data on the cloud. Some information, such as social security numbers or credit card data, cannot be transferred without careful considerations.
Moving your business to the cloud can help you cut a lot of costs and save a lot of time. However, there are definite drawbacks as well. These are some of the most important factors to consider before making your final decision.